English Literature & Theology

 The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire. Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Peasantry (those who worked).  In the late fourteenth century, a moral decline in the habits of the religious and the deterioration of religious exercises was causing great concern. In the Host’s portraits of the pilgrims, the narrator sets out the functions of each estate and satirizes the members of the different estates illegal actions  and behavior – particularly those of the Church – fail to meet their duties.  Religion is the center of the Canterbury tales as we learn that these characters are all making a holy pilgrimage to the church at Canterbury, a popular religious destination after Thomas Beckett, a priest, who was murdered inside the church and proclaimed a saint. The prologue to Canterbury Tales provides a window into the debasement of Christianity under the Catholic ...

 John Donne's "Death, be not proud," or Holy Sonnet 10, is a poem written in the form of an Italian sonnet. It is narrated in the first person. The narrator directly addresses Death, a figure personified to a proud man in the poem. The concept of eternity is mentioned in the poem's last two lines. The key to understanding the meaning of eternity in this poem is to know that Donne, born into a Roman Catholic family, converted to Anglicanism and was, in 1615, ordained as a priest in the Church of England. This means he is writing not just as a Christian, but as a theologically knowledgeable cleric, and distinguished preacher whose sermons are still widely read.  The poem is an example of apostrophe, addressing Death (personified) as a living being who is thus listening to the speaker. This intentionally removes the mystery or sense of superiority in the concept of death, making it seem as though death can be easily defeated. John Donne doesn't really address the ide...

 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was an English nobleman, politician and poet. Henry took the courtesy title of Earl of Surrey in 1524 when his father succeeded as 3rd Duke of Norfolk. He was a great poet and credited as being one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. With Sir Thomas Wyatt ,Henry Howard  introduced into England the styles and metres of the Italian humanist poets and so laid the foundation of a great age of English poetry. Earl of Surrey's sonnet "Love that doth reign and live within my thought" is a translation of Petrarch's sonnet  Surrey's translation uses several Petrarchan images that became fashionable in poetic representations of love. The simile of "love as a battlefield," is central to Petrarchanism. Surrey's translation puts a greater emphasis on Love as martial conqueror.  Love is personified and made human, a character in the poem. This is used to show the conflict that love creates within the speaker. Love is the mo...

  Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution.  Guevara’s life continues to be a subject of great public interest and been explored and portrayed in numerous books and films, including The Motorcycle Diaries  Motorcycle Diaries is, as its title suggests, a record of a motorcycle journey, based on a diary by its author – a young Argentinian medical student – kept during the trip. What makes it remarkable isthat the young medical student who wrote it was Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna, now known as a leader of the Cuban revolution, a guerrilla strategist, a Cuban government official, and a fomenter of revolution in the Congo and Bolivia. Guevara was born into a middle-class family on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina. He was plagued by asthma in his youth but still managed to distinguish himself as an athlete. He absorbed the left-leaning poli...

  Salman Rushdie's first non fictional book and a journalistic account was written in 1987, and as a glimpse at that particular moment of time,  this book is very effective.   Rusdie’s trip of three weeks was made at the invitation of the Sandinista Association of Cultural workers and he was there at the seven year anniversary of the Sandinista’s rise to power. Rushdie sees a certain righteousness in the Sandanista movement, but warns that with power comes certain temptations, and admits that the leaders he met with were questionably equipped to deal with those temptations.  The Jaguar's Smile, the title of which comes from a famous Nicaraguan poem,  'Limerick' in which a little girl wearing a smile rides away on a jaguar. When she returns, the girl is gone, and now the jaguar is wearing the smile. Far from being propaganda, Rushdie awknowledges with his title that the politics of Nicaragua are dangerous and ambiguous. History would show that neither the Sa...

 Congreve’s plays belong to a genre known as Restoration comedy. The Restoration refers to the reestablishment of the monarchy in England with the return of Charles II to the throne in 1660 after a period of social upheaval. In English literature, the Restoration “age” parallels the political period, covering roughly the years from 1660 to the revolution in 1688 when Parliament regained power.  The genre is characterized by its satirical view of the times, with its particular focus on the relationship between conventional morality and the individual spirit. Its comic characters are often reflections of the shallow aristocrats of court society; they are peopled with libertines and wits, gallants and dandies.  In 'The Way of the World Congreve has presented the true picture of the contemporary society. Here he has described the infidelity of married women, the fashionable life of ladies and gentleman and the intrigues of lovers.  All the characters of this play are fon...

 Alexander Pope  was a poet and satirist of the Augustan period and one of its greatest artistic exponents. He is considered the foremost English poet of the early 18th century and a master of the heroic couplet. The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of mock-epic. The epic had long been considered one of the most serious ofliterary forms; it had been applied, in the classical period, to the lofty subjectmatter of love and war, and the Christian faith. In his mock epic The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope focuses on several major themes. The primary theme is the emptiness and frivolity of courtly, upper-class life, which Pope satirizes hilariously. The whole poem centers around a single lock of hair that has been clipped by the Baron from the nape of Belinda's neck. The Rape of the Lock is a humorous indictment of the vanities and idleness of18th-century high society. Basing his poem on a real incident among families of his acquai...

 Sir Roger has been characterized vividly by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Sir Roger is presented in these essays as kind, generous, lovable, and sometimes as a peculiar person. But in the hand of Joseph Addison, Sir Roger’s character is conveyed ironically. For that reason, he sometimes seems odd. Although he is gentle and mild and lovable to people, he has some eccentricities and oddities. And all these things are delineated superbly in these essays. Joseph Addison’s essay Sir Roger at Church is about a unique individual named Roger. Addison begins the essay by saying that the observance of Sunday as a holy day keeps mankind civilised and polished. On Sundays people are at their very best. They appear clean and talk to other people on boring topics. Just like a merchant discusses exchange rates, the Parish people discuss the affairs of the parish. The Spectator links this ancient wisdom to Sir Roger de Coverley’s sensible and honorable dealings with his servants, which, in t...

 The School for Scandal, as a comedy of manners, written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan , focuses on the lives and flaws of upper-class people, it is fitting that money or wealth is a strong theme in the play. A major question in the play is whether characters and the audience should believe Charles or Joseph to be the more moral and/or worthy brother. The critic and essayist William Hazlitt called R B Sheridan’s 1777 play The School for Scandal, ‘if not the most original, perhaps the most finished and faultless comedy which we have.  The main theme centers around morality.  There are distinct groups of characters - those who are members of the "school for scandal" and those who are not.  In the first group, we see characters who maintain a facade of morality (or "sentiment"), but who spend their days gossiping and manipulating to destroy others.  These are the members of the "school for scandal" - Lady Sneerwell, Joseph Surface, Snake, Sir Benjamin Backbite...

 According to some biographies, Samuel Johnson began reading Shakespeare since he was a little boy .He’s probably the most prominent writer of the 18th century and the most valued. He developed a fascination for Shakespeare’s plays that continued throughout his life. He knew Shakespeare so well and so deeply that he was able to criticize him with the same devotion as he praised him.  Johnson wrote A preface to Shakespeare in 1765. He decided to take this work because he thought that there were a lot of problems with previous editions of Shakespeare’s plays, and he believed that a new version written by him would correct those problems.A preface to Shakespeare is divided into two sections that define with exactitude the duality in Johnson’s words. In the first part he talks about the natural excellence that Shakespeare possessed and the uncommon gift that was given to him as a writer. Johnson criticizes his contemporaries in this part, since he thinks that they don’t take into ...

 Derek Walcott was verymuch interested travelling and he might have come across that he might have rejected by the people ( white people) of other countries because of his mixed identity. In this poem  Derek Walcott himself convaying his pain which he felt in an isolated area.  The title Castaway means, the rejected and devastated life in darkness . This poem depicts the theme of broken identity, isolation and also describes the power of nature, and  the power of the landscape or an ocean.  In this poem he is going to emphasize the horror of silence and boredom.  In this poem Derick Walcott explains the brokenness of the life by taking his own example.  The poem begins with the feeling of an Isolated person who is casted out in an island, and waiting to get out of that place , the poet tells that,  "The starved eye devours the seascape for the morsel  Of a sail". The horizon threads it infinitely. Though he has an optimistic hope like a youth...

 George Lammings “Natives of my Person” is a tragic allegorical account of the journey of a slave ship toward San Christobal during the early colonial period. In this novel the author insists the reader to explore the human weaknesses of the men aboard “The Reconnaisance”. As they are forced to confront their insecurities and subsequent physical and emotional abuse of their women, power relations and class struggles in their native land of Lime Stone. In this instance, the author nicely describes the hidden political ideologies and self destruction than the moral values in this book.  'Neil Gaiman' : one of the famous English author says that ,  "You see evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction."   Furthermore, as the tale unfolds we learn of all manner of moral failings on the part of these "upright men of society." In the same way we can also witness the distraction and destruction which takes place in this novel.  In the novel, Lamming writes...

 "Virtue" is one of the poems in a collection of verse called The Temple (1633), which George Herbert wrote during the last three years of his life. By then, he had taken holy orders in the Anglican Church and become rector in Bemerton, England, near Salisbury. Herbert's poems are lyrical and harmonious, reflecting the gentle voice of a country parson spreading the Christian message. He appreciates the beauty of creation not only for its own sake but also because he sees it as a mirror of the goodness of the Creator. Yet, despite Herbert's sense of the world's loveliness, his poems often reflect the transience of that beauty and the folly of investing it with any real value. In "Virtue," he presents a vision of an eternal world beyond the one available to sense perception. Implicit in "Virtue" is a delicately expressed struggle between rebellion and obedience. The understated conflict lies between the desire to experience worldly pleasures and ...

 “The Good Morrow” is a celebration of love, which it presents as an intense and unparalleled pleasure. All the joys that the two lovers experienced before they found each other pale in comparison to the joy they experience together. Indeed, love is so powerful that the speaker describes it as an awakening of the soul: it is almost a religious experience.  And like a religious experience, it reshapes the lovers’ attitude to the world at large. Like monks or nuns who dedicate themselves to religious practice, the two lovers dedicate themselves to love above adventure and career success. “The Good Morrow” thus translates romantic—and erotic—love into a religious, even holy, experience. Love itself, the speaker suggests, is capable of producing the same insights as religion. “The Good Morrow” separates the lives of the lovers into two parts: before they found each other, and after. The speaker describes the first part of their lives with disdain: the pleasures they enjoyed were “...

 In an age of Tudor courts and multiple marriages, an age of no dominant literary tradition, Surrey, along with Wyatt, offers a breakthrough with this literary experimentations, a hundred years on since Chaucer. Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), and one half of the Wyatt and Surrey duo, was the first English poet to publish blank verse. Wyatt and Surrey were also the first English poets to form their own sonnet tradition, that was a move away from the Petrarchan sonnet form.  Born to an ancient, privileged peerage, Henry Howard, popularly known as Surrey, was, as might be expected, made a part of the Tudor court. As a part of the Court, Surrey was encouraged to display his learning, wit, and eloquence by writing love poems and translating continental and classical works. It was an age when poetry was not just seen as a medium of self-expression but as one of the polite activities undertaken as an extension of the Court, having its own set of conventions that had to...

 Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by a powerful nation or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers imposed their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices.  Before the advent of colonial rule, India was a self-sufficient and flourishing economy. Evidently, our country was popularly known as the 'golden eagle'. India had already established itself on the world map with a decent amount of exports. Although primarily it was an agrarian economy, many manufacturing activities were budding in the pre-colonial India. Colonialism was certainly a far more traumatising experience for colonial subjects than their colonisers. They suffered poverty, malnutrition, disease, cultural upheaval, economic exploitation, political disadvantage, and systematic programmes aimed at creating a sense of social and racial inferiority.  Western colonial...

 Volga is known for her feminist literary works. Her novels, articles, poems portray women with modern, progressive ideologies. She while keeping the quality of work maintains the reality of characters, intact. All of her novels were written while she was a full-time employee, rather than fully dedicating her time to the novels.  Popuri Lalita Kumari, popularly known by her pen name Volga, is Telugu poet and writer well known for her feminist perspective. She writes about the politics woven around women s bodies without any fear and hesitation. Her works bastardize the canards that have controlled women s bodies, their thoughts, experience, expectations and desires.  Her narrative technique is so explicit that it makes the readers sympathize with her characters as one does with one s acquaintances. Her stories disturb people, make them think, show them a new perspective not known earlier, persuade them to reanalyze the already known facts, show them a new path to see the ...

 Janaki Srinivasa Murthy, better known as Vaidehi. She is a poet, fiction writer, essayist and playwright of modern Kannada language. Vaidehi is one of the most successful women writers in the language of Kannada and also a recipient of prestigious national and state-level literary awards. Gulabi Talkies is a compilation of twenty of her short stories written in Kundapura regional Kannada dialect through the 80s and 90s time line, with pastoral South India as a background.  In her work, Vaidehi depicts the social situation of women in a way they live their personal lives. Vaidehi's stories are unique for their subtle delineation of human feelings and emotions.  Every stage of womanhood — as a daughter, sister, mother and in addition as a daughter- in- law and a mother-in-law — is celebrated and picturised very neatly. Vaidehi’s women are almost always a product of their situation, hence their negotiations are unstated. Vaidehi says that - “There is a man in every woman an...

 Matthew Arnold was an English poet and critic of the Victorian age. Arnold was also a major cultural critic, and he became a vigorous defender of "high culture" Some consider Arnold to be a bridge between Romanticism and Modernism.  Arnold's evaluations of the Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are landmarks in descriptive criticism, and as a poet-critic he occupies an eminent position in the rich galaxy of poet-critics of English literature. Arnold turns his back on the prevailing Romantic view of poetry and seeks to revive the Classical values of objectivity, urbanity, and architectonics. He denounces the Romantics for ignoring the Classical writers for the sake of novelty, and for their allusive, Arnold uses the word 'suggestive writing which defies easy comprehension. Arnold makes clear his disapproval of the vagaries of some of the Romantic poets. Perhaps he would have agreed with Goethe, who saw Romanticism as disease and Classicism as...

 Tragedy is a Greek word, Aristotle lays out the earliest known definition of tragedy in his 4th century BC "Poetics". In the context of the role of poetry to Greek culture, Aristotle's definition addressed tragedy within the primary foundations of society: religion, ritual, community, and individual experience. Many Greek poems were considered divinely inspired and granted by the Muses - theater was often a religious experience for the publc. Aristotle’s tragedy can be defined as: “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.” Aristotle  compares tragedy to such other metrical forms as comedy and epic. He determines that tragedy, like all poetry, is a kind of imitation (mimesis), but add...

 Matthew Arnold was a poet-critic and one of the most significant writers of the late Victorian period in England. He occupies a prominent place in the history of Literary Criticism. His essay “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” was published in his first collection of critical writings, “Essays in Criticism” in 1865.  “The Function of Criticism in the Present Time is largely made of ideas that Arnold discusses in his Study of Poetry. He defines criticism as “A disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought of in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true ideas.” The term ‘disinterest’ in the view of Arnold refers to being an impartial and just reader. A critic needs to be free from two prejudices: historical and personal. Historical prejudice is when the critic resorts to view through the lens of past and neglects the present in the work.  By the definition of criticism provided by Arnold, the task of a crit...

 Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poetry by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and that was originally published in 1798. Wordsworth’s preface to this collection was composed for its second edition, published in 1801, and expanded for its third edition in 1802; in it, he outlines and justifies his poetic choices and beliefs. Lyrical Ballads is considered by many to be the beginning of the Romantic movement in literature, and the preface describes and demonstrates many of the characteristics of Romantic poetry.  In Wordsworth’s 1880 Preface he sets out his poetic position. He emphasizes various points stating his opinion regarding poetry of the time. I will focus on the “ordinary”, the role of poetry and the poet, and the poet’s response to public taste and opinion.  Ordinary life is the best subject for poetry. (Wordsworth uses common man's language.) The great innovation was to be in the language. The poetic diction of the eighteenth century poets, sought t...

 "The Second Coming,” of course, refers to the Christian prophecy in the Bible’s Book of Revelation that Jesus will return to reign over Earth in the end times.  Yeats had his own mystical view of the history and future end of the world, embodied in his image of the “gyres,” cone-shaped spirals that intersect so that each gyre’s narrowest point is contained inside the widest part of the other.The gyres represent different elemental forces in historical cycles or different strains in the development of an individual human psyche. The challenging imagery starts to make more sense. The “falconer,” representing God’s attempt to control the world and his people, but he  has lost his “falcon” which represents humans,  in the turning “gyre”. These first lines could also suggest how the modern world has distanced people from nature and from God. In any case, it’s clear that whatever connection once linked the metaphorical falcon and falconer has broken, and now the human wor...